April 5, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 9:00 am
If you’ve had any interest at all in Apple’s iPad, you’ve already read umpty-ump reviews, articles, screeds, and attacks, viewed a million screen captures, watched some YouTube videos of it in use, and know whatever you want to know. So I won’t go there. I’ve had the iPad for a day and a half, and [...] read more →
April 1, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 4:29 pm
Last night at 8 pm Pacific time, the Internet lit up with the first reviews of the Apple iPad from the tech journalist A-list and an interesting scattering of regional papers and web sites. Apple seeded nine units to reviewers, and today handed more off to journalists, including Macworld magazine and at least one analyst, [...] read more →
March 30, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 6:19 pm
A bill that’s close to becoming law in the United Kingdom may spell the end of widespread publicly available Wi-Fi hotspots in pubs, cafes, and even libraries, except those that are run by the largest and best-funded organizations. The Digital Economy Bill is a mess of many different topics that’s receiving scant scrutiny by members [...] read more →
By Glenn Fleishman at 10:58 am
Google put out a call six weeks ago for cities between 50,000 and 500,000 ] residents to tell the firm why it should choose their community to build a 1-gigabit-per-second fiber optic network at the company’s expense. (See “Google Plans to Test Superfast Broadband Networks.”) Unless Google opens the contest up to additional cities, only [...] read more →
March 24, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 5:29 pm
This morning, an idea popped into my head. Aggressive movie lines turned into timid ones. I jumped onto Twitter and wrote the following items: Why, yes, I am Spartacus. #calmmovielines Stella? Stella? Excuse me, Stella, can you hear me? #calmmovielines Khan. #calmmovielines That #, a hash mark or number sign, is called a hashtag when [...] read more →
March 23, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 1:45 pm
The latest approach that large media firms have for putting the genie back in the bottle when it comes to people making perfect duplicates of digital movies, games, and mp3s involves a plan that cuts users off from the Internet based on private (and difficult to refute) accusations. The plan, known as a “three strikes” [...] read more →
March 16, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 1:10 pm
The Obama administration’s long-awaited National Broadband Plan is out, and, boy, is it a stinker when it comes to shaking up the highly profitable, yet highly selective broadband industry. Broadband providers build what they want, where they want, and largely make a fortune from so doing. (Qwest may be the exception.) The “plan” is a [...] read more →
March 15, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 1:06 pm
Nearly every person or group that has a Web site with useful content, from the New York Times down to Aunt Ethel’s Elderly Cat Continence Tips, would like to make money off their operations, ideally with minimal friction between readers’ wallets and site owners’ pockets. Hasn’t worked so far, but that hasn’t kept companies from [...] read more →
March 11, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 1:32 pm
Starting three weeks ago for smartphones and today for laptop adapters, T-Mobile will charge you less for using data over its mobile broadband network if you buy the phone or cell modem outright, instead of signing up for a two-year contract and letting T-Mobile subsidize your purchase. Sounds pretty obvious, right? But T-Mobile is the [...] read more →
March 9, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 11:02 am
Yesterday, Amazon.com gave Colorado the boot from Amazon’s Associates program—a program that lets local online retailers earn a share of the revenue when it refers customers to Amazon. Here’s why Amazon dropped its Colorado associates (more commonly called “affiliates”): Amazon prefers not to collect sales tax from its customers outside a very few states in [...] read more →
March 8, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 10:32 am
Adobe’s Flash, a multimedia plug-in for browsers, has become the flash point—sorry—for the future of video and interactivity on the Web. Apple doesn’t include a version of Flash in the Mobile Safari browser that’s part of the iPhone OS, and doesn’t allow third-party plug-ins for that browser. Of course, no other handheld operating system platform [...] read more →
March 3, 2010
By Glenn Fleishman at 4:06 pm
Rob Glaser has only been out of RealNetworks’ chief executive seat for a few weeks, and big changes have taken place at the firm he founded (and in which he remains a major shareholder). Today, RealNetworks settled the lawsuit brought against the firm by a number of studios and related parties over its RealDVD disc-copying [...] read more →
